Young Achiever
Honouree
Sangay Loday
Bhutan
My name is Sangay Loday, I use they/them pronouns. I usually describe myself with limited words but knowing the safety of this platform, I would describe myself as an individual whose identity is as motley as a work of art. I identify as Bigendered (I identify as Non-Binary and Agender) and Queer while finding comfort in being addressed with They/Them. I find it difficult to express myself in those words in Bhutan but I still find my space. I am an advocate, theater performer and writer. I grew up becoming the person I needed the most as a child and now I speak for that child. I perform to show the diversities of stories I have learned from the world. I write to heal, to change, to connect with and from the stories that surround me.
Brief information about your work
I serve as a freelance Queer Youth Consultant, Theatre Performer, Writer and Ambassador. For three years, I served in the Secretariat of Queer Voices of Bhutan (QVoB) as a Program Associate. I work in theatre with the Royal Textile Academy of Bhutan, as a writer with a media syndicate called Politweak, and as an ambassador with the Movers Programme and Doha Debates. With (QVoB) we curated content on LGBTIQA+, SOGIESC, Mental Health, Consent, Boundaries and Safe spaces along with covering 10 stories of LGBT+ individual who faced extreme discrimination, sexual assault and rape. In 2023, we organized the first queer centered exhibition on the theme “Out of the Closet: No more Queer Clichés” surrounding body autonomy, sexuality and gender. In July of 2024, I through Politweak covered a story on the current integration of LGBT+ into the current National Gender Equality Policy that was later published through a national media house in Bhutan called Kuensel. As an ambassador for the Movers Programme, I as a part of the core team curated a module on “LGBTIQA+ Inclusivity” that is used in the workshops facilitated by Movers across the Asia-Pacific. Additionally, I will be attending this year’s ILGAWorld as the only Bhutanese representative.
What one achievement you’ve accomplished that you’re most proud of? Why?
I facilitated a networking session for children. I painted myself for a session to be more colorful. The children took different colors and exchanged them once they made a friend. After, a child asked me if I was queer to which I agreed. After some hesitation, they came out to me. It was an amazing moment as they were able to express themselves at a young age. I told them my story and they confided their own in mine. It had been a year as an advocate and that story will always have my heart. For a child to find safety in me, I think the younger me would be proud.
What do you find most challenging about your work? Why?
To be queer in a country that is still learning is to lose privileges you never knew you had. I advocate for a life that I myself am not living, to go out there and talk about rights and freedom when I have to go back home and lose it. To be afraid and to be queer, that is my biggest challenge.
What do you do to recharge your battery?
Therapy has been my biggest go-to for the last year and sometimes I go karaoking and to parties where I let my emotions out without hesitation. I let out all the trauma of my work so that I am ready for the next moment.
What is your vulnerability and how do you overcome it?
To speak about the trauma that I am healing from. To speak of pain in the moment and to be loved for it has been difficult for me. My eyes could be full of tears but the words would still not come to me. In therapy I learned sprinkling, expressing little needs and to speak more of it. I ask my friends to listen to my little words. Little by little I have come far and at least now I can say, “I feel something I cannot share, will you sit with me so I don’t have to feel this alone”?
What is a warm/hopeful message that you would like to share with the communities in the Asia Pacific?
Prioritizing ourselves I’ve learned is the greatest advocacy we create because as a minority and a vulnerability as a part of us is activism.
